33 weeks, 5 days We just finished our childbirth classes. I thought all Americans watched a childbirth video as part of their traumatic, Puritan sex ed at around age 11. But from the nervous reactions of the 20-30-something year olds in our childbirth class, maybe this is not the case. I'm just glad our instructor forgot to show us graphic scenes of C-sections. She offered us a choice of leaving the room for 2 minutes but she forgot to show us the video. Half of the class did get teary and sniffly at the birth scenes, including us. I was really quite surprised having never been moved by childbirth scenes- the TV and movie versions don't come close to capturing the emotional intensity. Unfortunately, I think our media gives everyone preconceptions of the intensity of the pain instead of the emotion. I don't doubt that it is painful, but I do expect the difficulties to be around endurance, not pain.   ¶ 11:40 AM

  33 weeks, 5 days For most of the pregnancy, I had an aversion to chocolate. All it took was some handmade chocolates from Confiserie Louise Decarie (4424 St-Denis, Montreal (514) 499-3445) to turn that all around though. Uniquely Quebecoise - chocolates made in the French tradition, but many of them have heavenly maple syrup fillings!   ¶ 11:34 AM

  31 weeks, 1 day Whew! All the airplane trips are over and not a moment too soon. We went to Montreal/Toronto for 5 days (I now know a few French words: chocolat, crevette, foie gras, frommage, & patisserie ;) and I came back from a business trip to Pasadena yesterday. As of yesterday evening my bathroom trips have suddenly quadrupled. This morning, the midwife told me a probable cause for this. August has moved to a head down position. Hurrah! We're all set for the big day!   ¶ 6:49 PM

  30 weeks, 5 days I'm finally pregnant enough that strangers are asking me my due date. Previous to this, I think most strangers were unsure if I was just a bit overweight. One nice benefit to this is that almost everyone is happy to share a little pregnancy related story with me. You would not believe the variety of experiences I've heard, such as: going into labor during the baby shower, permanently losing bladder control (ack!), gaining a shoe size with every birth (ack! ack!). Hmm, maybe "benefit" wasn't the right word to describe this phenomenon.   ¶ 1:08 AM